guess what it was a lie

This is our route to DC. We'll stick to it as long as we're able to. If not, well, you got our destination, just in case you guys decide to join us." Rick takes the map from Abraham without a word. Everyone was by the gate waiting for the others to load up the bus they had found with supplies. Glenn, Maggie, Tara and Rosita were already seated while Eugene was showing Carl tricks.

"Once Eugene gets to the big brains Left up there, things are gonna bounce back." Abraham shifts his feet. "This Pack should be there for it. You should be there for it."

"We will be." Glenn says, "We're Gigwaga, where one of us goes, the others will feel it."

"We will be." Rick agrees, shaking the Alpha's hand. "Though you seem to be singing a very different tune than yesterday."

"Rosita knocked some sense into me I guess." Abe clears his throat, "She my Zeta for a reason. You guys do have something good here that will last as long as the Pack stays here. If things go south for us or this doesn't work out.... It'd be nice to be able to come back."

"We'll save you guys some room in the pack." Rick smiles, "Just in case."

Abraham gets into the driver's seat and the others climb in after saying their goodbyes. A image flashes through the bond and Rick looks to Daryl and stiles. He steps in front of the bus, his son's at his left side with step into the circle, followed by Tyreese and then the others until the bus was surrounded. The ones on the bus looked concerned and a little scared, Glenn sticks his head out the window and calls out to Rick. The Prime doesn't answer, the Pack focusing on the images that flow through the bond, though he does send a thought to Daryl to include their Pack on the bus so they would remain calm. By Glenn's smile and Maggie's teary eyes, they understood what was happening.

Rick and Daryl raise their right arms at the same time, making a small cut on their palms before doing the same to their left. They hold out their right arms with the palms facing down and the left arm with the palm facing up. The other Pack-members do the same thing, before grabbing each other's hands, the cuts overlapping. When the last person connected their palms to complete the circle everyone's eyes go black.

Rick and Stiles spoke the next part in perfect unison, "Mother Earth and Father Time, watch over them."

The rest of the Pack calls out, "Gigwaga."

"Keep them safe from those that wish them harm."

"Gigwaga."

"May the dirt beneath them remain hard as stone."

"Gigwaga."

"May the winds favor them, and hide their scents."

"Gigwaga."

"Son noquisi leiten tou anedolido laronxe."

"Son noquisi leiten tou anedolido laronxe, Gigwaga." Glenn, Maggie and Tara repeated the last sentence, Eugene and Rosita whispering it to themselves.

"What'd they say? Son noquisi leiten tou anedolido laronxe, gigwaga? What the hell does-?" Abraham cuts himself off, seeing his eyes change colors. Everyone's eyes were lit up, glowing an erie reddish-gold that flickered like flames. He watches in awe as his and his Pack's eye shift as well. Rick waits until the color has dissapeared from everyones eyes before he has them release their hands, the small cuts on their palms healed.

"What the hell was that?" Rosita leans out the window, eyes wide. Daryl comes closer to the front of the bus to answer her.

"Our Pack is entrusting three members into your care on a diplomacy mission. To not offer you a blessing would have made my mama turn in his grave if he had one."

"A blessing?" Eugene leans out another window. Abraham was standing in the opened door to hear better.

"The earth will protect you from most dangers but not all of them." Stiles comes up to the group with Ajax. "Taking extra care to bless our Packs was the best we can do."

"Think of this as a trial run." Rick purrs. "Should you make it to DC, or back here, safe without meeting to many Walkers, the earth will have recognised y'alls potential. We'll welcome you as Pack the next time you come through the gate."

Abraham clears his throat and nods, Eugene and Rosita sniff back tears with smiles. The Alpha shakes Rick's hand with a watery "Thank you" before getting back in the driver's seat and starting the bus up.

The Pack watches their people leave with heavy hearts, the bus shrinking in the distance. Rick throws his head back and Howls, sending them good will and an echo of 'Gigwaga' through the bond. The rest of the Pack Howls as well, and they hear the answering Howls and smile before going back to building the walls and planning how they were going to lay the crops. Rick pulls the map out of his back pocket and looks it over, laughing when he sees the bottom.

'SORRY I WAS AN ASSHOLE.

COME TO WASHINGTON.

THE NEW WORLD'S GONNA NEED RICK GRIMES.'

Now it was time to get beth back and once Rick had pick people to go on a run the leave , but rick not trusting gabriel made him come along the run leaving , Stiles , carl , and a couple others in the church.....

Abraham was astonished at the few Walkers they had seen since they left the prison group. Even camping had been easy; the Walkers seemed to pass right by them without even a hint of knowing they were there, though they had yet to come across a herd. The Alpha was in a good mood so he let Rosita play with his hair and even joked with her when she mentioned it had gotten long. Tara tries to get Eugene to join in the festivities, but he responds with short worded, tense answers. She exchanges a concerned look with Maggie and Glenn.

"What's up?" Tara asks slightly louder, hoping to catch Rosita or Abraham's attention. They would know the Omega better than her, if it was something to be concerned about then they would step in. "Is it about what happened yesterday? Or the night before that?"

"Nope." They wait. "Well- yes. That and tomorrow."

"How long will it be?" Maggie asks Eugene. "After you get on that terminal and do what you have to do?"

"Depends on a number of factors including the density of the infected around target sites worldwide."

"Wait, target sites?" Glenn asks. "You're talking about missiles?"

"That's classified." The Omega looks out the window.

"I thought we were over that?" Glenn sighs.

"What if we all live?" Eugene turns to face the Alpha again, "Those secrets will still matter. Anyway, the speed with which things normalize depends on a number of factors including worldwide weather patterns, which were modeled without the assumption that cars, planes, boats, and trains wouldn't be pouring hydrocarbons this long. Changed the game quite a bit when it comes to air-transmissible pathogens."

Glenn narrows his eyes at the Omega, noticing the way he spoke. Maggie puts her hand on his arm to keep him quiet before turning to the Omega and asking, "Why the hair? Is it a style that you like or does it have a special meaning."

"Because I like it." He shrugs. "And no one is taking scissors or clippers to it anytime soon. Do you hear me Miss Espinoza?"

"Yes, loud and clear." The Beta turns around laughing and flips the Omega off. Eugene smiles and rolls his eyes but goes back to looking out the window.

"Y'all can laugh all ya want."

"No one was making fun." Maggie laughs.

"The smartest man I've ever known loved my hair." Eugene puffs out his chest. "My old boss, T. Brooks Ellis, the director of the Human Genome Project. Said my hair made me look like, and I quote, "A fun guy," which I am. I just ain't Samson."

Abraham passes a small herd of Walkers and the group startles. This was the first time in almost four days that they had seen so many. A loud bang and Abraham slams his foot on the brakes, swerving to avoid some of the broken down cars on the road. The smoke from the engine and tires blocks his view and he clips the edge of a van, flipping the bus on it's side and making it skid down the road. Within seconds Walkers had them surrounded, coming out of the trees to join the small herd that had followed them.

Abraham calls out for Eugene while everyone pulls themselves up and checks for injuries. When the Omega didn't answer Tara calls out for him, moving up to the seat he was in before and checking his pulse. Rosita calls out for him and Tara yells back that he was alive and unharmed, just dazed. Glenn checks everyone else to make sure they were ok, watching the back door where Walker's were clawing at the glass.

"The engines on fire." Rosita coughs, "We have to get out of here!"

"Abe!" Glenn calls out to the other Alpha male, "We'll go first, knock them back and give Maggie and Rosita room to get out. Tara stay here and guard Eugene, come out when it's clear."

"Ok." The two women start for the back door, while Abraham kicks the back door open. "Make sure you don't get bit you guys!"

Tara stabs a Walker that goes through the skylight, and hands Eugene a knife, keeping him behind her away from the windows. She has him go out the door first and comes out behind him, joining the others in killing the Walkers while circling Eugene. The Omega whimpers but grabs one of the Walkers that sneaks up on Tara and holds it while she kills it. Once all of the Walkers are down Abraham yells for them to check Eugene.

"I'm fine." The Omega pants, "Just dings and cuts from the glass on the bus."

"CHECK HIM!" Abraham snarls, eyes black with adrenaline. Rosita moves to the Omega and pulls him to the side, rubbing his arms and legs and watching for any flinches. She lifts his shirt while he whines; three of the four Alphas looking away for the Omega to have some privacy.

"That your blood?" Glenn looks at the Alpha.

"Yeah, old wound. Damn thing opened again." The man pants. "The cuts are finer than frog's hair. Big bleeders."

The bus was on fire, all of their supplies lost. They grab their guns and what they can on Abraham's command and make their way down the road. It's dark before they come across a store to camp out in overnight. Abraham goes in first with his gun cocked, trying to push down the haunting feelings at seeing the store aisles, though these had books on them instead of picked over groceries. He calls the others in and they search the store carefully, Abe's Pack making faces at the prison people whistling with each aisle and room cleared. Tara comes out of the bathrooms with refilled water and they don't question where she got it, seeing as none of the faucets or pipes were working.

Abraham and Glenn move the wheeled shelves to a corner of the room for cover over their campsite while Eugene uses a wire wrapped in paper and a battery to start a fire in a trash can. Tara uses metal coat hangers to make a brace for the cans they were using to boil the water, while Maggie and Rosita rip up books to fuel the fire, the two laughing when the Beta grabs a copy of Twilight and throws the whole thing in. They use some of the string from the book's spine to stitch Abe's cuts closed with a needle Rosita had been carrying.

Glenn and Abraham go on watch while the others make food. The ginger Alpha sighs and turns to the other, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Showing up." He laughs, "It took a little horse trading to get you here, but it's plain as potatoes to me now. You get it. Could have gone back to Rick after the crash, made a case, but you stayed."

"We made a deal."

"You coulda broken it. What would I have been able to do? We were close enough that y'all could have been back at that gate by moonrise if ya shifted and ran." Abraham smiles. "I probably ain't going to be as good as Rick, but I'll try my damndest to be a great Prime for y'all."

Glenn ducks away from Abraham's hand aimed at his neck and smacks his rifle into the Alpha's stomach, pushing him into the wall and aiming his gun at his head. Eyes red and teeth growing Glenn growls until the other Alpha shows his neck, "There seems to be a misunderstanding. I'm loyal to Rick and his son's; to the others of MY Pack, MY FAMILY. We are here as a sign of good will BETWEEN the two Packs, NOT because we wanted to leave and join yours. Do not jump to conclusions without all of the fucking facts. Try that shit again with any of us and I'll put a bullet in you faster than you can blink."

"My apologise." The Alpha's eyes flash at the threat but he keeps them lowered out of respect. Glenn shoves himself away from the Alpha and leaves him to stand guard on his own. When he gets to the others he sees Tara and Maggie in the corner away from the other two and guesses that something had been said to them as well. He shifts forms, startling Eugene as his wolf passes them and lays down at his Packmate and Mate's side. When Abraham comes back up and stops at the sight of the wolf, Glenn growls. The Alpha ignores them and goes to get something to eat. No one speaks for the rest of the night.

The Pack wakes up early to Rosita and Abraham fighting over whether they should stay at the bookstore one more day to recover or get right back on the road again. Maggie breaks up the fight and they head out to where Abraham had found a fire station, planning on taking the fire truck with them. They check it for gas and weapons before the men hop up in the front and try to start it. Abraham laughs when the engine turns on and everyone piles in. They don't even make it a foot before the truck dies and refuses to turn back on.

"Can't shit go our way for once!" The Alpha gets out and starts checking the truck over again, swearing. "This thing did some serious crowd control. The air filters got to be caked in human remains."

"We'll find another ride." Glenn hops out of the truck, leading the others out.

"If there was anything worth it in this damn town we'd of seen it." Abraham argues. The Alpha goes to start cleaning off one of the intakes but stops when he sees a tire rolling out from behind the truck. Glenn sees it too, as well as the now open door to the station that the truck must have been keeping closed. The same truck that was far enough away now that the door could be pushed open enough for Walkers to come out. Eugene is pushed back inside the truck and locked in while everyone else grabs weapons and attacks the dead. Glenn calls out a warning that more was coming in from the back so no one sees Eugene get out and climb up to the top of the truck until the Walkers were being taken out with pressurised water from the hose. The Packs try to stay out of the way so they don't get hit and take out the ones Eugene can't get. Once all of them were down the Omega shuts off the water and starts climbing down.

"I've been to eight county fairs and a goat rodeo, and I ain't ever seen anything like that." Abraham laughs. He climbs up and starts trying to clean up the filters, laughing harder when he sees a sign on the ground saying the sick were inside and to let them die. They're able to drive the out of the town and down a back road before they have to stop again to fix the truck. The others make a circle around the truck and stand guard while Abraham tries to fix the truck.

"What the hell is that?!" Glenn shouts from the front of the truck. The others move towards him to see what happened. "Guys the wind is picking up , you'll be able to smell it."

The group gags at the overwhelming smell of death and decay in the hot humid sun. Maggie loses her lunch at the smell, and the others lose it at the sound of vomit. Abraham has them keep moving, leaving the truck behind. They make it another two miles down the road before they refuse to move again. In front of them was some kind of building with tents and rides; a carnival from Before. What made them pause was the hundreds of Walkers that were roaming around.

Glenn shakes his head, turning back the way they came. "Lets go. We can't go that way."

The others turn to follow but Abraham doesn't move.

"Abe? We can't go that way." Rosita gestures to the others, "We need to find another way around."

"Hold up."

"We need to go." Maggie tells the Alpha.

"No, we don't." Abraham argues. "They can't hear us or see us from this distance. We're fine."

"Yeah, cause this is the definition of "Fine"." Tara scoffs.

"Let's check the map." Glenn offers, "There's got to be a way around."

"No." Abraham starts to pace. "We detoured from Houston to Georgia, and I'm not playing that game anymore."

"We're not going to get through that." Glenn growls pointing at the herd of Walkers so large they couldn't see the end from where they were standing. "It isn't going to happen, ok?"

Abraham tries to argue with the others, but with Eugene and Rosita both backing down as well, the ginger Alpha bites his tongue and turns back towards the fire truck. He grabs Eugene under his armpit and starts dragging him along, the others yelling for him to let go when the Omega starts yelping loud enough to turn a few Walkers towards them.

"I'm not going to let you do this Abe!" Rosita calls out. Tara tries to get in front of the Alpha but he pushes her off. Glenn shifts and jumps on the Alphas back, snarling. Abraham screams at the Alpha about how he'd dared to attack him, while keeping a tight hand on Eugene. The three females try to pull Glenn off but the Alpha was pissed that the other had laid a hand on Tara; on his sister.

"I'M NOT A SCIENTIST!" Eugene screams in Abraham's ear, jerking his arm away and cradling it against his side. He pushes himself as close to the fire truck as he can and everyone freezes, Abraham having thrown Glenn to the ground and was standing on his chest, Maggie and Tara half shifted while them and Rosita tried to pull the Alpha off the smaller one. The ginger Alpha gets off Glenn and shakes off the others. He doesn't get any closer to Eugene when he sees the blood running down his arm from the grip the Alpha had had on him, and the tears in the Omega's eyes as he watches all of the in fear.

"I lied." He whimpers, refusing to look at anything but his feet as his whole body shakes, "I lied, I'm not a scientist. I don't know how to stop it."

"You are a scientist." Rosita argues, "I've seen the things that you can do."

"I just know things." Eugene shakes his head, "My grandmother said I was on the spectrum as a child; I fixated on things and dug for information until it was dangerous. I couldn't understand grey areas and knew things about things that people in college couldn't understand. I did have a Doctorate and a PHD in Biochemistry, Engineering, and was working on other degrees when the all this went down, but I have no clue what happened or how to fix it."

"You just know things?" Rosita sniffs, "People died trying to get you here."

"Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk, and Josephine." Eugene's voice got lower with every name until he was whispering. "I lost my nerve as we got closer.... So I put crushed glass from a light bulb in the fuel lines on the bus. We weren't supposed to make it out of sight of the church, much less three days out."

"You what?!" Rosita takes a step back.

"You could have killed us." Tara scowls. "Why did you do that?"

When the Omega just sinks to his knees, Glenn gets closer and shifts back to human form, kneeling as well, "Eugene.... Why would you do that? Answer me."

"I wasn't allowed to legally live on my own in the Before world because of what I am and the Pack I was raised in, especially with my issues. I wouldn't have survive on my own, I can't survive on my own. I was good at lying and things so I thought I could just fake it until we got there."

"Why DC?"

"I had family there." Eugene looks away, "An Alpha that my Prime sold me to. I was supposed to go to him the week before the Walkers serged in numbers beyond comprehension."

"Sold to?" Glenn looked at the Omega in understanding, "I get it; you were scared. An autistic Omega in a Polkrato Pack; hell, I'd be terrified. But that doesn't change the fact that you lied. We left our Pack to come with you on a trip that could take a year to finish if we're not careful. We could have all died."

Maggie and Tara both forget their anger when Glenn mentioned Eugene having a similar past to their Pack-mate, more concerned now on how to keep Abraham and Rosita calm so they don't attack the Omega or draw a herd down on them.

None of them see Abraham move until it was to late and Eugene had a busted lip and a broken nose. Glenn pushes the other Alpha away while Rosita grabs him and pulls. Tara and Maggie both shift forms and stand guard over the Omega who crawled under the truck to hide. Glenn shifts as well, ready to knock him down when Rosita steps in front of the Alpha with her hand on her hand gun. She keeps herself between Abraham and the others. Glenn shoves past the others and crawls under the truck, freezing at what he sees. Abraham had scared Eugene so much that he'd gone through his first shift, and had soiled himself in submission. A black face, chest, stomach, and paws made the rich brown on his back and tail even more bright. The fluffy long haired tail and ears were pressed so close to his body that Glenn thought he cut off circulation to them.

The smell of urine was so strong that Glenn almost climbed back out, but Eugene was already panting and hyperventilate into unconsciousness if he didn't do something. Glenn scoots closer despite Eugene's chirps- and wasn't that something, a grown man chirping as if he was a child seeking comfort- and tried to ignore the growing puddle getting in his fur as the Omega continues to try to appease the angry Alpha smell, his tail tucked and ears down as he tries to back away. Glenn stands as much as he can and gets behind the Omega, covering him from head to toe and laying his head on top of the others to help ground him.

The others had stayed in wolf form to guard them against Abraham, and Glenn growls when he sees the man's boots pass them. Maggie and Tara keep watch while Rosita tries to climb under the truck to see them, gasping at Eugene's wolf. The Alpha snaps his teeth in her direction in warning and she retreats, moving to the side off the truck and sitting down. Maggie goes to the other side while sending comfort to them and Tara does the same in the front. From his position Glenn keeps watch behind them, from Walkers and Abraham who had hit his knees and was staring at his bloody hands. Sending out his own calming pheromones and feeling Eugene shuffle closer to breathe them in, Glenn decides. They were all going back to the Church, with or without the ginger Alpha.